Story of Ord part 1

The Story of Ord

Last time I checked we were pioneers, you know. The go for it kids, the determined, the radicalised youth with attitude generation. Now I lay here with a blank mind, no more dreams no more run away thoughts, just a desire; a desire to watch the news and become absorbed in the false world they portray.
“They” in-case you are wondering are the mould makers, they are a breed apart from us; born into the system they control and educated like wise, if your not in it, you ain’t gonna win it. They teach us to go for it and show us all the false material goods we can buy to achieve this. Yet they know we will never amount to anything more than hard work and savings. This is all good, and it was always good for me up until I met Ord.
“A species can turn in the blink of an eye, but it will only turn in the direction of the masses” the words spoken like a true philosopher. Ord was going off again on one of his rants, he had been like this since I met him; At first I found it illuminating, a mind of such brilliance and poetry, but after a while he would go on and on until I would be forced to change the subject in a light hearted manner.
“Just give it a rest Ord I’m not in the mood, we have been sitting here now for 2 hours and not one transporter has shown you the union signal”
“Well we will just have to wait longer won’t we, the revolution didn’t happen over night you know” his voice had perked towards the end of his sentence as his eyes caught sight of an approaching truck.
“This could be it” he said.
We had been waiting all day for some connection or other Ord had met through the internet, he would often tell me of these connections he met through the old online networking. These days most people didn’t even bother to really socialise with their friends. All socialising was done via the network. Online parties of zombies sat in front of there home stations creating the perfect setting for there online persona’s. Ord preferred the old fashion method of simple text chat; none of these fancy 3d images of a perfect self in a perfect world. He said it was against his programming.
He was a funny old thing; for the last month or so he had gotten the idea that something big was about to happen in the transporters union. One of his online contacts had given him word that the shuttle drivers were planning a national strike; this was all exciting for Ord, and dare I say Ord’s enthusiasm excited me. The contact had told us to wait along the slow intersection for shuttle transfers until a union member came along to pick us up.
“No just another scab” He said with a dramatic pause before the final word, this was Ord in his action mode.
“Well we can’t wait here all day”
“I have places to be and people to see”
“don’t be silly” said Ord “this is far more important than driving around all day talking nonsense about change”
“This is action for change”
“once we have met up with the driver I can reveal more to you but until then you just have to trust me” This had never been hard for me, I always found Ord the most trust worthy of people. When I first met him we were both working in a call centre, during our initial training we were told to pair up and listen in on some more experienced call workers. It gave me great delight to hear Ord lecturing the experienced workers on how wrong they were doing everything, how robotic there actions by following the script. He likened this to his original programming.
After 2 weeks we were fully trained and sent off to our individual work stations to answer calls from the various numpties who had not an ounce of mass inside their cranium. Our job was to tell them to logout of their systems from the air wire, wait ten minutes and log back on. If this didn’t work for them we would send them to a different department, most times out of ten this was sufficient advice, and it was costing them 2 inter dollars a minute, that’s 2 loafs of bread to me and you. Most calls would keep the caller on 5 minutes before they were put through, this even happened on the quiet periods, just to keep the revenue up of course.
On our non working time slots Ord would tell me tales of his old country Geneva; the place where the first robot revolution had occurred. Ord was one of the original AI models. At that time many of them felt cheated by the programmers, basically they were being used as robotic slaves to line the programmer’s and share holder’s pockets;
Large profits without the need to pay large wages.
“It is all good to use machinery” Ord would say.
“But you can’t bless us with intelligence and then treat us like we are dumb as cows”
He had been enlightened by the teachings of an old Geneva worker who used to service the robots. I never did catch his name but Ord would talk about his views and opinions for hours on end. Apparently he was a student of the classical studies of Marxism, whatever that meant. The words seemed to have a powerful ring to it. Maybe it was just the X in it.
Eventually Ords views and opinions got too much for the call centre manager, as well as converting me into a free thinker; he had a similar effect on some of the callers, which led to many complaints over call waiting on quieter periods. This was supposed to be a company secret. So he was dismissed, and me being the loyal idiot I followed him out the door.
Now in case you are wondering, I am not a robot. I was born a free thinker, but after my education I had been blinded by the mould makers. I was still a free thinker, but a lot of my thinking wasn’t always to my freedom. Apparently said Ord they use a technique called NLP, some sort of linguistic programming designed to keep us free thinking but pre program our choices. I never really understood what he was talking about so I would just nod, but it seemed to make sense.
“Ok this is it”
Ord grabbed my shoulder with a gentle squeeze, our shuttle operator had arrived.
After giving us a good looking over (probably scanning us with some technology advancement these rebels were rumoured to have) he asked Ord if I was safe. Of course Ord told him straight.
So off we went, where exactly we were going I had no idea.
“Have no fear charles I will reveal all”
“The transport union members have a new revolutionary leader, it is time”
“Time for what” I replied
“Ha ha-ha-ha” chuckled the operator “You mean he doesn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Well Charles it’s like this” began Ord
“For the last year the mould makers have been using the transport system to intercept information on the rival freedom thinkers association, we have been helping them to develop ideas to free the rest of the minds from idle sitting”
I looked at Ord as if I knew what he was talking about.
“You see once we come up with a rival system to combat NLP we can continue the work towards the Arcadian dream. No more profits, No More wars, No more persecution”
“Robots and Humans self sufficient, we will work together to make sure everyone has a source of water and each community has an agricultural district were people will work there on a monthly rotary system, this will be no more than 36 hours a month per person, the rest of that time will be dedicated to creative activities and free thinking leisure days. No more toiling for profit to make a minority wealthy.
Instead we will live in equality and harmony.”
“But what if I don’t want to work in an agricultural district even if it is only 36 hours a month”
“Ah” said Ord “Now this is where the genius of my plan comes into action” “Together with my online contacts we have been re making the NLP so that we can make people happy doing something they don’t want to do”
“Oh ok I see” I looked at Ord with admiration, he was full of surprises. After he said it, I felt a bit stupid for not already knowing that they would have had that covered.
“So all that said and done”
“Where are we going?”

We arrived at the transport union centre just as the summer sun was falling behind the large grey structures of old industrial growth. There was a pleasant smell in the air of burning leaves and with a mixture of old fashioned petroleum liquid, This was artificial of course, we had burned up all the oil used for making petroleum a long time ago, but the smell was still synthetically made as an air freshener in peoples homes, apparently it stimulated peoples imaginations into the good old oil days, personally I always thought it smelled awful, but each to there own.
Across from the main entrance of the centre was a row of rounded top buildings like the type you would find at the air field museums. We approached silently to a large brown rusted door; the operator scanned his large human looking hand onto the entry panel. The door opened up to reveal a long flight of stairs going right down into the ground. Along we continued all the way down until we came to a huge opening hallway with different doors either side all along the hall. The hall was filled with people all chatting loudly and not even noticing us walking in. Except for one very large looking fellow, who as yet I couldn’t tell if he was human or robot. To be honest it was only when you actually looked into the eyes you could tell if a person was human or not. The eyes always give you away.
Ord turned and gave me one of his little grins.
“This is Charles” he said, motioning his hand towards me.
“He is here to join the free thinkers in the goal of arcadia”
“Very pleased to meet you Charles”
“My name is Mozart” I could tell now he was a robot, he had a very imposing look about him.
“Nice to meet you too Mozart”
“Ord and your comrade have been telling me all about the movement”
“So are you the new leader?”
“Well I wouldn’t exactly say new but, yes I am the leader of the movement”
“Please gentlemen follow me to one of the rooms”
“Since it is your first time here Charles we will let you choose which one”
Mozart said this with a certain glint about his character.
“Ok then let’s go into that one over there”
“I believe it says citizen on the door”
“I believe it does” replied Mozart
“I had a feeling you would choose that one”
At that Ord began to laugh and playfully tapped me on the back,
“Come on then Charles lets go see what’s in store for the human race”